Manthan : Newsletter Issue 1

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

5 - day Retreat at Junga

Venue:Camp Chrysalid, Junga- Himachal Pradesh

Date and Time:12 June'15 - 16 June'15

The Retreat was the beginning of the course on Mindful Personal Leadership, which will further continue through the year. The exercises offered were meant to be a personal transformative experience for Residents, generating greater awareness of the Self, nudging them to connect with the pride, joy, and purpose of their lives and thus their work.

Programme Commencement and Orientation

Venue:The Heritage School

Date and Time:10 June'15, 09:00 a.m. - 02:00 p.m.

We launched the Post Graduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching formally on the 10th of June, with the arrival of our first batch of 26 Resident-teachers. All the faculty members and The I am a Teacher core team were present on this occasion. The orientation was focused on setting the context, building a sense of relevance and purpose and laying the foundation for relationships towards building a strong community of learners.

CAN WE CREATE AN INDIA OF OUR DREAMS WITHOUT CREATING CLASSROOMS OF OUR DREAMS?

Our teachers are our first soldiers who will enable us to march towards true freedom.
Freedom from fear, freedom from comparison and judgment, freedom from meaninglessness,
freedom from ignorance and steer the youth towards self knowledge and awareness.
Wishing Teachers a lot of strength and courage on this Teacher's day!

Rarely do we associate a doctor with a school teacher.

“As a doctor, I have seen first-hand how the stress of having to deal with school led to the kids falling ill much more frequently. Not being able to cope with the others often led to a lot of stress in the children,” she says.

Why I chose to move from boardroom to classroom?

A chance encounter with ‘I Am A Teacher’ (IAAT) Teacher Development Program in 2016,
gave me the hope and encouragement that I needed to ‘be and lead the change’ I wished to see in our education space.

POSITIVE PARENTING' WORKSHOP BY DR. V.S. RAVINDRAN by HPSC in conjunction with I Am A Teacher

Haryana Public Schools Conference in conjunction with ‘I am A Teacher, is organizing a parenting workshop, with Dr. V.S Ravindran that will enable us to find a better connection with our children and encourage them to achieve their highest potential. This workshop aims at empowering us to find our own solutions to everyday issues and work towards creating a stimulating and nurturing environment for our children.

Samvaad

Venue:The Meditation Center, The Heritage school, Sector 62, Gurgaon

Date and Time:3 September'15, 02:30 p.m. - 05:30 p.m.

Samvaad by I Am A Teacher is a series of educational dialogues that would be held at frequent intervals every year on different themes and concerns related to education. It is a forum where we intend to bring together different stakeholders to dialogue and deliberate on various themes on education and gain insights for their own workspaces.

Our teachers need to realize the deep significance of their work. They need to see themselves as helping not only build, but also change and shape culture. Most often, the society sees a teacher as a mere wage earner, as an instrument for competitive ambitions of parents or schools, or implementer of goals set by other power centers. Teachers need to see and value themselves in the light of the fullest implication of their work, in the light of possibilities instead of constraints. Teachers need to be helped to see what their seemingly ordinary classrooms can do, the fact that they are and can be true leaders, because of the enormous societal and historical responsibility they bear on their shoulders.

This teachers’ day, we are bringing together some practicing teachers, student teachers, school principals, teacher-educators and educationists to deliberate on the role of teachers as leaders of change. We would want to explore what can be done by teachers in their day-to-day practice to shape young minds towards creating a new kind of a societal order.

Village Expedition

Venue:Haryana

Date and Time:22 June'15 - 24 June'15

The Residents went for a 3-day village expedition, a field experience offering opportunities to witness and analyze rural life, particularly in comparison to their own lives, and the questions and reflection it generates. For schools to contribute to justice and equity, teachers need to critically reflect on issues of privilege and oppression, which, central to any classroom, illuminate how social arrangements are imagined, constructed, sustained and challenged. Residents will start analyzing their social location and how it shapes their belief systems, which in turn manifest in the classroom.

Samvaad V - A dialogue on education

Venue:The Heritage School – Aacharya, Tulsi Global Meditation Centre

Date and Time:27 Febraury'15, 12:00 noon to 01 March'15, 03:00 p.m.

Samvaad as you know means ‘dialogue’. Our goal is to engage in true dialogue around the important Questions facing us as educators in these times. Samvaad is a joint venture of ‘Heritage School, Gurgaon’ that acts as our host, and the ‘Mount Madonna School’ in the USA. In its truest sense, it is a joint venture with each person who shows up.

Event for Leaders in Education

His schools have been referred to as an exemplar for real and hands on learning in the U.S. by President Obama himself. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a 25 million dollar grant to replicate his model of schools nationally and internationally. He is known for turning tradition on its head and delivering concrete results. Meet Dr. Dennis Littky, founder of Big Picture Learning, U.S. to talk to us about his radical school model and share with us how educators world over are riding the changing tides of learning and knowledge dissemination.

The tides are definitely turning and how. In today’s time, learning has moved beyond the confines of classrooms. Students now have the opportunity to learn what they want to learn, when they want to learn, from whom they want to learn and at what pace they want to learn—and these possibilities are limitless and growing. Does the current system of education work in building real life skills or are we still just focused on preparing for exams? While the students are prepared to conform and compete, the workplace needs leaders who can create and collaborate. This disconnect has left our students stranded, not knowing how to bridge that gap between “school/college life” and “real life”.

The Big Picture Schools, founded by Dr. Dennis Littky, part of the Deeper Learning Schools network, have truly bridged this gap like no other model. His radical work at Big Picture has prompted Fast Company to rank him #4 among the top 50 Innovators of 2004 and the George Lucas Educational Foundation to select Dennis as part of their Daring Dozen. His network spans 40 schools across the US, 25 in Australia and 13 in the Netherlands.

We are pleased to say that The Heritage School and ‘I am a Teacher’ have invited Dr. Dennis to come to India to engage in a dialogue about deeper learning and his work with Big Picture Schools.

Re-imagine Teacher Education

Venue:The Heritage School, Sector 62, Gurgaon

Date and Time:8 September'14, 04:00 p.m. - 07:00 p.m.

A dialogue was held at The Heritage School, Gurgaon to Re-imagine Teacher Education. A group of experts, principals, teachers, practitioners and academicians engaged in an intense discussion on how we should prepare a new teacher for a new India. Know More...